41 



figured Plate V. Fig. 1. It must indeed be admitted that it resem- 

 bles, in more respects than one, the description given by Helwing of 

 this fossil : " Corallium album superficie tiguris asteriformibus pro- 

 pemodum obliteratis*." From the accurate observations of Fougt, it 

 appears that this is a proliferous madrepore, a fresh series of stars 

 proceeding from the centre of the disks of the previously existing 

 stars-)-. 



Madrepora galaxea, m. faviolata, and m. pleiades, I have repeatedly 

 seen so far decomposed, as to have thereby acquired very much the 

 appearance of a fossil ; but this state might have been entirely occa- 

 sioned by long exposure to the weather, or to the action of water, 

 after they had been deprived of the influence of the living principle. 

 With the forms of mad. hyades, m. latebrosa, and m. arenosa, I am not 

 sufficiently acquainted to enable me to speak with respect to their 

 existence in a mineralized state. 



Plate V. Fig. 8, is the representation of a most beautiful specimen 

 of a fossil madrepore from Ribieze, in Transylvania. This coral, formed 

 of cylindrical stars with elevated margins, and having broad concavely 

 sulcated and radiated interstices, bears somewhat of a resemblance to 

 the madrepora radiata of Solander and Ellis. The coral has under- 

 gone a very considerable change ; it being now a carbonate of lime, 

 much more friable than chalk. 



Plate V. Fig. 4, represents another specimen from the shores of 

 Lincolnshire, which is so changed as almost to be reduced to the state 

 of chalk. It bears some resemblance to madrepora annularis of Solander 

 and Ellis, which appears to be merely a variety of the mad. radiata. 



Madrepora papillosa, which is allied to, and perhaps is, the madrepora 

 muricata,iu an incipient, is hardly to be distinguished in a mineral, state. 

 Madrepora polygama, in Gmelin's Systema Naturae Linnaei, is certainly 



* Lithographic Angerburgicae. Pag. 53. f Amcenitat. Acad. Fig. VIII. No. 2* 

 VOL. II. G 



